In record time, the controversy of the Papers, Please ($4.99) nudity appears to be coming to a close. If you haven’t been following the saga, which has entirely transpired over the last six hours or so, Papers, Please was released earlier this morning without the nudity found in the PC/Mac/Linux version of the game. Developer Lucas Pope mentioned on Twitter that the nudity-free version of the game on the App Store was because Apple rejected the original version due to “pornographic content." Whenever it seems like Apple is censoring anything, the internet goes wild, and as such the morning news cycle was filled with various stories surrounding it.
Not long after that, Ars Technica got in touch with Pope who really didn’t put up a fight on the rejection as he didn’t think the lack of nudity was a “serious burden" on the game. This brings us to the final chapter (Dare I say the prestige?) of this whole thing:
Just talked to Apple. The initial rejection for porn was a misunderstanding on their part. They suggested I resubmit with the nudity option.
— Lucas Pope (@dukope) December 12, 2014
@ttl_anderson He made it clear that their concern was not the pressure, but the mistake on review.
— Lucas Pope (@dukope) December 12, 2014
I'll make an update to restore the nudity over the weekend (default to off) and it should be available next week.
— Lucas Pope (@dukope) December 12, 2014
So, there you have it. Nudity is coming back, and it was a simple mistake on Apple’s part. If you simply cannot play Papers, Please without pixel privates dangling in your face, you won’t have to wait very long to do it. Let’s all take a deep breath and maybe go outside now.
